I took advantage of the good weather we had the other night and spent some time under the stars. I had originally planned to keep the observatory closed and just use my dobsonian to do some old-fashioned star hopping and maybe sketch some of the things I saw. It just turned out to be too […]
Journal entry for 2015/04/26 ~9PM – ~10PM It’s a very calm, cool, clear evening. I honestly can’t remember a more clear night here in Columbus. There are stars visible I didn’t know you could see from here given the light pollution and usually poor viewing conditions. These are the nights we astronomers live for; a […]
Have you ever taken a trip somewhere and it turned out to be not what you expected? I know I have. You see pictures in magazines of these beautifully exotic far-off places and get there to find trash on the ground and people everywhere trying to sell you junk trinkets and poorly made tee shirts. […]
Spent a little time in the backyard this morning grabbing pictures of the ‘micro-scene.’ It blows my mind every time I stop and look – just a little closer – and see how many plants and animals we step over without even realizing it. There were spiders and ants, slugs and frogs, birds and gnats, […]
When Ella was one year old, about five years ago now, I weighed 205 pounds. Up until then I was OK with that. For some reason that winter, I decided I wanted to lose about 10 pounds – nothing crazy. I remember seeing pictures of myself at around 192 pounds (about 10 pounds lighter) and thought, “Man, I looked […]
Emergence, self-organization, complexity, and the beauty of it all… While taking a little stroll through the backyard the other day, Ella and I stumbled upon an anthill. From eye level, it looked like a simple dirt patch void of grass. But as we bent down to take a closer look, a bustling metropolis was reveled! There […]
–from @nasa’s Instagram- Just wanted to share… The artist’s concept depicts Kepler-186f, the first validated Earth-size planet to orbit a distant star in the habitable zone – a range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the planet’s surface. The discovery from April 2014 of Kepler-186f confirms that Earth-size planets exist […]
07:00 TUESDAY 2015-04-07 I step outside and I am instantly aware of the 60°F moist air. Strolling over last night’s rain-covered ground, I listen to the morning birds and hear their songs. Driving to work I pass a bare cornfield and am startled by the large, close silhouettes of two passing deer against the eastern […]
(Personal journal entry for 2015-04-03) 07:15 FRIDAY Ohmygosh, I love this weather! This morning has been great so far, and last night was awesome too! Well, let’s start with this morning… The kids are on Spring Break so there was much less traffic on the way to work. It’s also much quieter. It’s darker than […]
I haven’t been submitting blog posts as frequently as usual lately. For a while, I was using this blog as a hybrid astronomy observation log and a personal journal. But since the beginning of the year, I started keeping a personal, hand-written journal; instead of posting the more personal stuff online I decided to keep […]